Now, a lot of the random thoughts that flicker through a sleeping person’s mind are indistinguishable from the white noise to me—those thoughts are off limits, I guess.

But when the sleeping mind puts together something like a narrative—a chain of thoughts, not just scattered ones—those I pick up. Whether I wanted to or not, at least within a certain range, the dreams of a living mind spread out like tentacles, stretching out, latching on, draining into me.

And I felt bad about it, because to the waking mind, those things are personal. Sure, some people share their dreams—but even if they don’t self-censor, they do fail to remember.

It’s weird how coy the sleeping mind is with the waking one when it’s so brazen in its broadcast.

It’s all right if they see that you have to go out back to collect yourself, to keep yourself from crying.

They say it’s understandable, though they don’t actually understand the reason.

Some people’s fates just can’t be improved, however hard you try.

You know who they are.

And some days they all come in together.

It’s hard to take.

Not crying is actually the easy part—there’s one easy fix, which is to find a target.

Sadness is holding on to pain.

But sadness with a target is anger.

So I took a break, sometimes, to be properly angry. There was a dumpster behind the shelter that had many a dent in it from my bad days.

Usually I made sure there was no one around before taking out my frustration. I thought I had that day, as well, but while I was waling away at the dumpster a soft voice came, saying, “Excuse me, miss?”

I went on a good long ways, still hearing Toby’s thoughts, till I reached the highway and figured I ought to turn back. I haven’t found a limit to my range once I have a connection to someone. The hard part is that I have no sense of distance or direction with it, really: if someone isn’t right by me it’s hard to make that first connection, as I discovered watching cars go by on the overpass, trying to listen. I couldn’t see the drivers and when I tried to connect with them, all I heard was static.

Everyone I meet who keeps it secret, I ask them why. The reasons are always the same—fear of losing something, or more specifically losing someone. Family, friends, church, one’s job—those are the big ones.

And I don’t really understand any of those. Either people will understand—which you would expect at least from true family and friends—or they won’t, and reject you—but if they would reject you if they knew, how would not telling them help? At best it is a sustained lie of omission;—at worst it’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing, living among the pack, praying every day the disguise doesn’t fall off—you don’t need a life like that.

Those discussions usually end in fights, especially when I say hiding just legitimizes the idea that it’s something that has to be hidden, in their eyes.

And yes, I know it’s hypocritical—they’re human, I’m not, and they don’t know it and I can’t tell them. But it’s not because I’m afraid of losing them—I’m not even afraid of being hurt, as I know some are.

I don’t even know what it is, really. I guess I’m just a liar.

And sometimes they ask me—if they’re still talking to me after the first blowup—what my reason is.

I’m not concerned about my family; I can’t imagine them pushing me away. And friends, well… nothing to lose there, really. The job is certainly not an issue; as an actor, the stereotype half expects it.

And I’ve made my peace with God.

What gets me, I guess, is that I don’t feel sure. If I knew it, knew it for certain, I wouldn’t have any problem saying so—but I don’t know it, I don’t feel it deep down, I still have that part of me that wonders deep down if just maybe I haven’t met the right kind of person yet, maybe I could still end up choosing differently.

And that’s why I don’t tell people—not because I’d rather live a lie, but more because I’m afraid coming out might be one. The world around me would change, and I don’t think that I’d be able to change it back if I needed to.

So they’re afraid of losing others, and I’m afraid of losing myself.

Of course, they’re farther along than I am at this point; they’ve already worked through their denial phase, or so they tell me.

I try to imagine my future; either way frightens me.

And so the ones that stuck around after the fight give up here, and tell me I’m not ready.

When I woke again, it was quiet in my head. I knew I hadn’t imagined it—I could still feel myself listening. There was just nothing to hear. Toby’s bed, at least, was empty; I didn’t know where everyone else might be.

I sat up in bed. Maybe I could find out?

I tried listening harder—

I started hearing what sounded like patches of white noise. I couldn’t really tell what that meant or how far away they might be. I figured I’d have to learn a lot about this ability.

Normal demihumans—at least, so I’m told—can generally reach somewhere around a mile’s radius telepathically, though at that distance it’s kind of like shouting and hearing far-off shouts. The comfortable range is rather smaller; communicating with your neighbors next door wouldn’t be a problem, assuming you were fortunate enough to have neighbors who were demihumans like yourself.

How far was I reaching? I had no reference point, and I could see I was flying blind. I got out of bed, got dressed, and thought about where to find people—the house seemed empty.

…of course, that was ridiculous, the house was never really empty. The body of a forty-foot giant was always in the basement. And I hadn’t reached him when I’d tried, so either I had no decent range or I was doing something wrong.

I ran down to the basement, sneaking in quietly so as not to disturb Toby’s poor body, and I listened.

What I heard was unmistakably the giant’s mind, a mixture of the large body’s dreams—they break my heart, even now—and the link coming in from his projected body.

I listened harder and I could see Toby’s viewpoint, walking through the supermarket with Rouss. But I knew that was his telepathy, not mine.

I focused on the giant’s mind and took a few steps back. I held the focus, and went upstairs and outside, still hearing it—and I kept going.

I took up most of the bench in the hallway as I sat studying, waiting for class to start—or at least, for the previous one to end.

Alithia sat next to me, deeper in the chemistry book than I was getting. Nobody else was waiting, though plenty of people were passing back and forth.

Just her being there made it hard enough to study, regardless of how badly the textbook explained valency.

Long brown hair over her shoulders, feet bare—sandals stowed in her satchel—comfortably rather than fashionably dressed—she takes life so naturally, the way she wants, and the world warps to fit her—in a way it never would for me.

I put the book down.

People started pouring out of the classroom. When the doorway had cleared, I nudged Alithia’s shoulder and got up to squeeze my way into the classroom, into one of the tiny chairs.

I don’t like to generalize. It’s too easy to generalize—to say, I helped a lot of people—but then it stops being meaningful.

You help one person, concrete and specific, and that’s great… You help a lot of people, —well, it’s a lot, just one lot, no matter how many are in it; and it’s hard to be excited about an abstract category. Humans and demihumans alike have trouble with scale.

So I can’t talk to you about a lot of people. Even ‘one person’ is a bit abstract. I’ll talk to you about Jevin.

I can’t save everyone. Ultimately, I don’t think I can save anybody—everyone die, sooner or later—but there are better and worse ways to go.

I saw pretty early that I wouldn’t really be able to do much with my talent as a doctor, which was my first thought. There woludn’t be much changing lives—mostly people would only come in for problems they already knew they had, and any human doctor can give decent odds on how a person would make out—I’d just be better at it.